Monday, February 20, 2012

A few photos of Wahclella Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge. At some point last year I realized I hadn't been there in quite a few years, and had precisely zero photos of the falls, so I made the trip, did the easy hike in to the falls, and took way too many photos. And as is usual when I take too many photos, when I start trying to sort through and pick a few to post, I get a headache and quit iPhoto and don't look at them again for six months or a year. Which is more or less what happened here.

The one upside to this is that I always have a backlog of reasonably bloggable photos sitting around for times like this when I feel like doing a new post, but the trees are bare and grey and the weather's uncooperative. So there's that. I mean, some people might take this opportunity to go without photos and write about life, art, or politics instead. But I've already tried the political blogging thing once and I found it stressful and unrewarding. Meanwhile life is pleasantly boring, generally speaking, and would make for blog posts even more uninteresting than the stuff I do post about. And I always seem to need photos when I talk about art here (and those photos tend to sit around in iPhoto for months first, just like everything else).

So anyway, Wahclella Falls at the same exit off I-84 as Bonneville Dam, but on the opposite side of the freeway. A short drive gets you to a Forest Service parking lot, which has a fee of a few dollars. It's annoying, and I should point out that they do actually check now and then whether you're parked legally. Besides, if the Forest Service has a revenue shortfall, the difference just gets tacked on to the federal debt; you'll end up paying eventually one way or the other, so you might as well just pay now.

The initial segment of the hike is on a flat service road, until you get to a weir or flood control widget of some sort. After that it's a regular old trail. You'll pass little Munra Falls early on. Then you continue hiking in until you get to the main event, where the trail ends. There are a couple of forks in the trail, but they all end up in the same place and form a loop. It's really that simple. There aren't intersections with other trails to worry about, or any steep technical sections, and it's only 2 miles in and back, and the scenery stays interesting. I did it as a kid a few times & never thought it was a big deal. What's more, the place gets overlooked a lot, and I don't recall it ever being remotely crowded when I was there. And I can say with a fair bit of confidence that nothing has ever become fashionable or popular after I wrote about it here in the 6+ years this humble blog has graced the interwebs. So it's likely to still be uncrowded if you take my advice and go.